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"…Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life…" An interactive conversation expanding upon what we are hearing & learning about at First Baptist Church of Casper. Please come in and join us! Questions and comments are encouraged!!

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Who Are We? Colossians 1:1-8

I love the book of Colossians and am super excited that we will be in that book for the next 10 weeks. Paul lays out a beautiful picture of the supremacy of Jesus in this letter–one that I think if we truly “got” would change us to our core.

In the first message of this series, John highlighted verses 1-8 of chapter one—Paul’s greeting. It says this:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father.We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. (NIV)

So many things stand out in this passage–
*Paul’s call “by the will of God”– EverypersoninChristhasacallby the will of God, including you and me.
*Paul’s acknowledgement of Timothy– Paul does notdoministry alone; neithershould we.
*His acknowledgement of the believers in Colossae as “holy” or “saints”, not because of superior morality, but because of their position in Christ, they belong to, are set apart by the presence of Jesus in their lives. We too, are saints, holy–because of Jesus. Can those around us perceive that we are different? Not superior, but different.
*Paul encourages the Colossians, builds them up, acknowledges that he has heard about their faith, about their love for one another, about their hope in God’s big plan, about their acceptance of the gospel and the growth in their region because they are sharing it, about their understanding of the grace of God, and he lets them know that they are not alone–that the gospel is spreading throughout the whole world. And he mentions Epaphras, and says beautiful encouraging things about him. Building one another up, sharing life together, speaking life to one another, are indicators of the presence of Christ. Is that how we, the body of Christ, are living today? Are we known as life speakers? As encouragers?

John threw out some nuggets of his own in the sermon:

*Knowledge means nothing if it’s not connected to your heart.
*The ability to have faith and love comes from our hope–hope in all things becoming right, complete, because we know how it ends, we see the big picture and what God is doing in the big picture.
*Christianity was pushing into a world that didn’t necessarily want it.
*False teaching began to come in and Christianity was being twisted to meet the desire of the people, so Paul wrote to the Colossians encouraging them to keep Jesus Christ at the core of who they were, to shape their lives around him.
*We belong to Jesus, He does not belong to us.
*My identity, your identity is that we are followers of Jesus Christ. It’s all or nothing.

In the midst of all of these beautiful and profound things, my heart landed on Epaphras. Epaphras, the “fellowservant” of Paul and Timothy, the “faithfulministerofChrist” to the Colossians, the man who presented the message of Christ so beautifully that the Colossians “trulyunderstoodGod’sgrace” and it changed their lives and their community forever.

We don’t know much about Epaphras. He is mentioned in one other book of the Bible– Philemon, and at that point he is a prisoner with Paul and is sending his greetings to Philemon who was a leader in the Colossian church. But what we do know about Epaphras is that he loved God, he understood God’s grace, he found his entire identity in Christ, he embraced the call of God–the will of God in his life, and he knew and presented Jesus in a very compelling way to a group of people in Colossae–it changed their lives and bore fruit.

Can that be said of us? Are we “fellow servants” with others in the ministry of sharing Jesus? Are we “faithful ministers of Christ”? Do we know and love Jesus enough that those around us can “truly understand God’s grace”? Are we in-all or nothing-as followers of Christ? Are we willing to push into a world that doesn’t necessarily want Jesus? Have we lost our hope? Do we feel alone?

Isn’t that encouraging? While it’s true that Christianity is growing at a slower rate in the United States than our population growth, the annual world population growth is at a rate of 1.2%, and the annual evangelical growth rate is 2.6% (GMI.org) Just like Paul wrote: “the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.” There is a permanency to the gospel. It is powerful, it will not be stopped, the gates of hell will not prevail against it! (Mt. 16:18)

So the question for us, who live in a part of the world where the gospel is not growing as fast…who live in a world resistant to the message of Christ (because, unfortunately, he has been so misrepresented here), are we each willing to be an Epaphras? Are we willing to fall in love with Jesus, recognize His beauty, His supremacy, ask Him to teach us to love the world, to connect our knowledge to our hearts–to His heart–embrace God’s will, God’s call in our lives, and allow the Spirit to flow through us to those around us? May hope in the fulfillment of God’s big mission birth faith and love that leads to action in each of us.

–Luanne

I find myself a bit scattered as my fingers land on my keyboard… How can it be that there is so much packed into eight short verses? There are so many directions to go, points to expound on, thoughts to explore. As I read through Luanne’s words and re-read the verses a few times, one thought stuck in my mind.

All of the people mentioned in these verses were “all in”, fully committed to the work before them and fully committed to one another.

The letter is written from Paul-and he includes Timothy-to the church at Colossae. We know from all that is written by-and about-these two that they were committed to furthering the Gospel of Jesus. But what stood out to me about them in this short passage related to their commitment to the Colossians.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you… (vs. 3)

I think this short verse is so beautiful. The two words I highlighted above, “always” and “when” say so much about the hearts of Paul and Timothy toward their brothers and sisters in Christ. “When” we pray, let the church know that they were being faithfully prayed for. And when they prayed for them, it was always with thanksgiving. We aren’t privy to all of the other things Paul and Timothy may have prayed in regard to this church, but we know that they always thanked God for them. What if we prayed that way for each other? First, that we actually pray–that’s the “when”. And second, that we always begin by thanking God for whoever it is that we are praying for. Thanking Him for the work He is doing in the people we pray for, starting there. Not with the gripes and a critical spirit–with grateful hearts that can see the life of Jesus working in fellow believers. I have this feeling that if we changed just this one tiny thing in our prayers, we would find that our own hearts would be changed and our relationships would grow stronger.

And the people they were praying for, the Colossians, they were “all in”, too. John gave us a breakdown of their story. He laid it out this way:

They were once disconnected from God, dead in their sin–us too, right?

They heard the Gospel, and they accepted it. We have heard-have we accepted it?

Their sins were forgiven and they were baptized and began living a new life. Do we know our sins are forgiven? Have we been baptized and have our lives been made new?

Jesus was Lord of their life. They lived in a way that testified to His Lordship. Where are we in this step? Can people look at our lives and see us unashamedly living Jesus’s way?

John also said, and Luanne mentioned this earlier, that they were pushing into a world that didn’t want them there. We will come back to this point…

I think it’s safe to say that the church at Colossae was “all in”.

And then there is Epaphras. Luanne wrote about him so beautifully, so I will use her description again here:

“…what we do know about Epaphras is that he loved God, he understood God’s grace, he found his entire identity in Christ, he embraced the call of God–the will of God in his life, and he knew and presented Jesus in a very compelling way to a group of people in Colossae–it changed their lives and bore fruit.”

Again, he was “all in”. Paul & Timothy, the Colossians and Epaphras-all of them lived lives fully surrendered to Jesus and fully on mission. These eight verses tell us more than enough about them to come to the conclusion that they were committed. They were in. Period. No turning back. And that is why they were “pushing into a world that didn’t want them there”… and having success.

When John spoke those words, I couldn’t help but relate it to us today. As Luanne mentioned above, the United States is one of the few countries where Christianity is growing more slowly than the population of the nation. It is not at all a stretch to say that, in our present day and culture, the world around us doesn’t really want us here. I agree with Luanne that a major contributing factor is that we have so misrepresented who Jesus is and what our faith is all about, but regardless of the “why”, we are definitely unwanted in the nation we call home.

What are we doing about that? Could it be said of us that we are “pushing in” to a world that doesn’t want us, as the Colossians did? Or are we allowing the world around us to influence us more than we are influencing them? Are we being shaped by culture or are we shaping culture? As individuals and as the collective church?

I believe that the reason the Colossian church was successful at pushing into and changing the world around them was because they were all in. Their understanding of who they were-ambassadors who represented Jesus, brothers and sisters who all were important to the family of believers and saints because they belonged to Jesus-directed every facet of their lives. They got it. They accepted it. And they lived in a way that proved that they believed it.

What about us? Can we effectively push into a world that doesn’t (know) they want us? The answer, I believe, is yes. If we go all in. If we can follow this beautiful example and live fully committed lives, we can and will see the statistics in our nation and the world change for the better. I want to live an “all in” life. Will you join me?

We would love for you to enter into the conversation with us through the comments section!